Private Ghosts in the Trees

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Circle of Flame, Cholganna
Objective: Exploration
Tag: Darth Morveth

Cholganna was a feral world, a place where life was constantly in flux. It was kill or be killed in the cool forests that dotted the planet. Creatures of all sizes stomped and scurried across landscape, making for a backdrop of beauty and danger. It was against this backdrop that T'zarna Khab found herself walking, making her way to an ancient site of worship. Primitive cultures of Cholganna often worshiped in large henge-like formations.

One of these ancient megaliths was called the "Circle of Flame", a structure where bonfires were lit in ritualistic routines to give offerings to their goddess of fire. Such rituals often required grisly sacrifices, blood for their gods to gorge themselves on. T'zarna had an appreciation for such a dedicated mass, but their faith was misplaced. It was apparent by the long abandoned nature of the site that no spirits had come to save them. No gods to keep them safe through the harsh conditions Cholganna offered.

Even as she traced her fingers over the cold stone, she could feel a resonance of stale fear. It was The Dark Side bubbling up through the hand-hewn rock, old blood mixed with the energy of the force, it made her nerves tingle in an eerie way.

Places like these were rife with a connection to The Dark Side, and through finding them, she could feel echoes of the past. Her hope was to find those who could also feels these echoes, who were drawn to such places by the unseen hands of The Force. Just as the light drew in Jedi, The Darkness could be easily as seductive to those outside. So far though, there was no one to reward her search. Only a few scared tribes folk who ran at the sight of the encroaching alien woman. They were right to feel fear, as The Dark Jedi had chosen this planet next for their conquest.

 

[Darth Morveth]

Tag: T'zarna Khab
​

Cholganna breathed as all wild worlds breathed, though tooth and claw, through rot and bloom. Life fed upon life in an endless turning and the Force here did not whisper, it growled. It hunted. Morveth moved within it as something half-belonging. There was a familiarity in it - not in shape or scent, but in spirit. The violence of it. The honesty. No pretense of civility, no fragile order imposed to mask weakness. Dathomir was the same. It did not forgive. It did not soften. It demanded. And in that, he held a quiet kind of approval.

He passed through the undergrowth without sound, gaze steady, taking in the world not as an outsider but as something that understood its language. The wraps along his forearms were darkened from the damp, his tunic clung faintly in the humid air, but he did not slow. This world tested.

There was a pull. Not the ever-present threat of teeth and claw, but something older. A thinner thread, woven through the bones of the land. He followed it without hesitation, listening past the noise of life to something quieter. Magick stirred at the edge of his awareness. Not the deep, living current of Dathomir but an echo. Repitition without understanding. Ritual worn hollow.

The trees thinned. Stone rose. He stepped into the Circle of Flame without ceremony. The air clung to the place, thick and stagnant. Older fear soaked into the rock, layered into something that resembled power but lacked its teeth. Sacrifice without communion. Blood without answer.

Morveth crouched, fingers brushing the stone. The residue stirred faintly beneath his touch, reactive but empty. A wound, not a well. And then... there. Not the place. Within it. Another current, Subtle. Controlled. Not of the tribes. Not of this world's dying rituals. His hand stilled. Slowly, he rose. His gaze shifted, drawn toward the presence the same way he had been drawn to the circle itself. Recognition settled, quiet and certain.

The air within the ruin seemed to deepen, tension not sharpened but drawn inward, as though the circle itself remembered what it had once been used for. Morveth did not reach for his blade, did not call power to his hand. He simply stood within the ancient stones - still, watchful and aware. Waiting.

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Circle of Flame, Cholganna
Objective: Exploration
Tag: Darth Morveth

An uneasy stillness hung in the stale air, as much a warning as it was anything else. Even the fiercest of hunters knew to be wary of ambushes, that the eyes in the dark could be their end. It was exhilarating, in a life-and-death kind of way. Perhaps only those that had been close to death in the past could feel such a thrill.


For a moment there was the faintest flicker in the force, where it came from was impossible to tell. T'zarna was overconfident in that moment, a dangerous mindset to have on such a primal world. Such arrogance could be the proverbial sword hanging above one's head.

The insectoid woman kept inspecting the ruins for a moment, hoping for insights into The Dark Side, but there was nothing she could feel beyond old echoes. If this planet would be useful to them, then how was yet to be seen. There was still hope however, still time to find power in this place.

Perhaps though, there was more here to find than just an old ritual site. T'zarna turned around, wondering if something was near to her. In thick undergrowth, there could be any number of threats. Disgruntled tribesfolk, the infamous Nexu, and even darker types of threats, all possibilities within the wilds.

[Whatever is out there, it shall not deter my quest. If it comes for me, the darkness shall guide me,] She thought to herself, as the foliage around her settled. Something was coming, that much was for sure.

Her unblinking compound eyes glinted in what little light creeped through the canopy above. She shifted her gaze around, seeing many things others might miss. Was there someone there? If there was someone, their meeting was coming to a head!

 

[Darth Morveth]

Tag: T'zarna Khab ​

The jungle did not betray him, it bent around him. What she had sensed was not careless advance of a beast through brush, nor the clumsy tread of tribesfolk emboldened by numbers. It was subtler than that. Measured. A disturbance that revealed itself only because it chose to. A shadow where shadow already lived. The undergrowth shifted once. Then stilled. And from between the dense growth and hanging vine, he emerged.

Darth Morveth did not rush the moment. He stepped into the edge of the clearing as one already aware of every path, every line of sight, every angle from which death might come and had found none of them threatening. Tall. Still. Unhurried. The dark tunic bore the marks of the jungle's breath, dampened in places, clinging faintly to a frame built not for show but for function. Forearm wraps darkened with moisture, hands bare and empty. No weapon drawn. No visible tension.

But the Force did not lie. It gathered around him, not flaring or striking, but coiling inward, controlled with the kind of discipline that did not need to prove itself. His gaze settled on her. Not in surprise or in challenge but recognition. He had felt her before he saw her. That much was clear in the way his posture did not shift or tighten. There was no adjustment, no recalibration. Only stillness, as though her presence had already been accounted for long before this moment.

The ruins seemed to hold their breath between them. Old stone. Old blood. Morveth said nothing. He did not reach for power, though it lingered close enough to answer if called. Did not move closer, not did he retreat. He simply stood in the Circle of Flame, as though the ancient site had found its purpose again.

His head titled ever so slightly, studying. Not the way a hunter sizes prey but the way one force measures another. And in that silence, the space between them did not feel empty. It felt... waiting.

 

[T'zarna Khab]

Location: Circle of Flame, Cholganna
Objective: Exploration
Tag: Darth Morveth

Cat and mouse, a constant tension between hunter and hunted. Whomsoever moved first would cast themself as aggressor in this game, a game that could turn deadly. T'zarna was aware that someone was getting closer, that she wasn't the only wraith stalking this planet's shadows. T'zarna cast her eyes to The Circle, there she finally saw him. He was no native of this planet, he was something much stronger. Darkness seemed to pool around him as a creature clung to it's master. It was nothing short of impressive.

Soon, the insectoid woman stepped from out of the shadows. She would forgo the trappings of the underbrush, instead opting to meet a fellow Darksider on even terms. Respect often begot respect, even if that respect only manifested in a swift death. That was the risk of such transactions...

"I can sense in you a great darkness, one possibly greater than my own," T'zarna began, acknowledging a fellow master of The Force. "You do not walk with the force, you bend it to your will. You walk as someone who does not wish to bend his knee..."

The force was capable of much, but it was impossible for it to tell lies. One could often tell much about another force user by how they used their power. Jedi, for example, always beseeched the force to do as it was needed. Clearly, this was no Jedi.

"I come with no harm intended, I believe there is much this planet could offer. But to find someone so strong in The Dark Side, that is truly a surprise."